Good morning. We'll get the live blog rolling today with a few tweets that caught our eye overnight:
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Friday, January 17, 2020. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage. Goodnight.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Ukrainian President Refuses Prime Minister's Resignation
By RFE/RL
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he does not accept the resignation of Prime Minister Oleksei Honcharuk, which was submitted earlier on January 17.
"I received your resignation notice today," Zelenskiy said during a meeting with Honcharuk. "You know I made up my mind to give a chance both to you and your government."
Honcharuk submitted his resignation amid a scandal surrounding an audio recording in which he allegedly disparages the economic knowledge and competence of both himself and Zelenskiy.
In a Facebook post on January 17, Honcharuk wrote that "in recent days, you have all witnessed ongoing events around files leaked to social networks that had been mounted from fragments of records from the government's meetings."
Zelenskiy's office acknowledged receiving Honcharuk's resignation letter, but said it will comment later on how it will react to the situation.
"In order to prevent any doubts about our respect and trust to the president, I have submitted my resignation to the president with the right to bring the issue to the parliament," Honcharuk wrote.
"[The files'] contents artificially create the idea that I and my team do not respect the president, who is our political leader," Honcharuk added, saying that he and his cabinet respect Zelenskiy as the leader of Ukraine.
The veracity of the audio recording remains unclear. On the clip, a voice that sounds like Honcharuk's says that Zelenskiy and he are “incompetent in economic matters.”
Honcharuk has said audio is a compilation of “fragments of recorded government meetings.”
Honcharuk posted a video statement on Facebook accusing unnamed individuals of leaking the audio, calling them "people, who would want us to fail." In the video, he vowed to continue what he called "our fight against corruption."
"I address those who are fighting against us: you will never frighten us! We will eradicate corruption even with more vigor," Honcharuk said, adding that "the massive attacks on social networks and media against our team prove that we are on the right path."
He did not elaborate.
A 35-year-old former lawyer and a political newcomer, Honcharuk was named prime minister in August.
Pompeo Says U.S. Will Look Into Claims Former Ukraine Ambassador Was Followed
By RFE/RL
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the State Department will investigate whether former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was in any danger while she was in Ukraine.
Pompeo made the statement on January 17, just days after documents were released indicating that Yovanovitch, who was recalled in May 2019, may have been under surveillance in Kyiv.
The documents indicated that Lev Parnas, a Ukraine-born U.S. citizen who has been indicted on campaign-finance charges, helped U.S. President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, try to find incriminating material against former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
The documents also show Connecticut Republican congressional candidate Robert Hyde disparaging Yovanovitch in messages to Parnas and giving him updates on her location and mobile-phone use, raising concerns about possible surveillance.
Trump is now facing an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate on charges of illegally withholding aid to Ukraine to pressure Kyiv to investigate the Bidens and of obstructing the congressional investigation into the Ukraine matter.
Some of the documents that Parnas released suggested that Yovanovitch may have been under threat.
"We will do everything we need to do to evaluate whether there was something that took place," Pompeo said during a radio interview. "I suspect that much of what has been reported will ultimately prove wrong, but our obligation -- my obligation as secretary of state -- is to make sure that we evaluate, investigate. Any time there is someone who posits that there may have been a risk to one of our officers, we'll obviously do that."
Pompeo said he did not know and had never met Parnas.
Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled last spring after being told by the State Department that she was in unspecified danger, according to testimony she gave during the U.S. House investigation into the matter in November.
Her recall came after a months-long effort by Trump's allies to have Yovanovitch, who was seen as blocking a possible Biden investigation, removed.
On January 16, officials in Ukraine announced they would launch a criminal investigation into the information that Yovanovitch may have been under surveillance.
With reporting by AP, Reuters, and The New York Times